Wal-Mart's Apple Pay competitor launching soon, Bloomberg saysCurrentC, the mobile payment application funded by Wal-Mart (WMT), Target (TGT), Best Buy (BBY) and others, will see an early trial run next month, Bloomberg reported earlier, citing three people familiar with the situation. A spokesperson for Lowe's (LOW) said the consortium behind the app expects an official launch in Q3, and Bloomberg noted that CurrentC will compete with more "established" offerings such as Apple's (AAPL) Apple Pay and Google's (GOOG) Android Pay. Reference Link

J.C. Penney upgraded to Buy from Neutral at BuckinghamBuckingham upgraded J.C. Penney to Buy and increased its price target to $12 from $9. The firm believes 2H comps could accelerate as initiatives take hold and has increased confidence it the company's ability to hit its 2017 EBITDA target of $1.2B. Buckingham believes FY15 sales comp guidance of 4%-5% is achievable and sees continued gross margin improvement and reduced SG&A levels.